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fiancé, Dermot Popplewell, but he was a good man, which was far more important than a pleasing profile. Directly after meeting him last month, she had learned that Cedric was instrumental in raising funds for a charity hospital being built in Spitalfields, in East London.
    What’s more, he was unfailingly gracious. He noted her Americanisms but never scolded her for them. Every word he uttered was eloquent. By contrast, after her first fiancé, Bertie, proposed, he’d told her that she was “as pretty as a red wagon.”
    A red wagon! She should have known from that very moment he was unsuitable, but she’d been infatuated.
    Cedric, however, had just compared her to a “darling bud of May.” Would Bertie have sworn that he loved her to distraction?
    Inconceivable. The only thing that distracted Bertie was a new rapier in a shop window.
    Cedric didn’t give a flip about her money, either. He was a duke’s son, for goodness’ sake. Her uncle Thaddeus had told her that very afternoon—while noting that Lord Cedric had his permission to propose—that his lordship had no need of her fortune.
    Honestly, Cedric was almost too good to be true. She felt a twinge of worry, but she pushed it aside.
    He was perfect for her.
    As she watched, rapt, he caught up her left hand, delicately removed her glove, and slid a diamond ring onto her finger. Emotion was pressing so hard on the back of Merry’s throat that she hadn’t even croaked “yes” before he touched his lips to her fingers, and rose as gracefully as he had knelt.
    Cedric smiled at her and ran a finger down her cheek.With a thrill, Merry realized that he was about to kiss her for the first time. He leaned forward, and a shiver ran through her.
    “I’m morally opposed to kissing young ladies to whom I am not affianced, Merry. Will you say yes?”
    He was so ethical, so unlike the lecherous boys she had known back home. “Yes,” she breathed. He bent toward her again and Merry’s eyes drifted closed. His lips brushed hers, once, then again.
    She swayed toward him, tilting her head to receive another kiss, a real kiss this time, one where he would draw her into his strong arms and kiss her as if he was scarcely able to contain himself.
    No kiss came.
    She opened her eyes. Her fiancé had turned toward the library table, and was picking up the glass he had carried with him from the ballroom.
    With a start, Merry remembered her governess’s instruction. An English lord would never be as indecorous as Bertie, who stole kisses every chance he got. Even worse, if Bertie managed to catch her alone, he would caress her in most inappropriate ways.
    She wouldn’t like Cedric to behave in such an unseemly fashion. Well, perhaps she would like it, but it would never happen because Cedric was a true gentleman, as principled as he was handsome.
    “I don’t suppose you ever imagined as a little girl that you would marry into the English peerage,” Cedric said.
    “No, I hadn’t,” Merry admitted. After a brief encounter with a Mohawk warrior at age eleven, she’d always imagined herself as the adored bride of a man with high cheekbones and the touch of wilderness in his eyes—most assuredly not an English peer.
    That girlish foolishness had led directly to her acceptance of Bertie’s proposal. Obviously, Cedric was as unlike Bertie as a swan to a potato.
    Lord Cedric epitomized British aristocracy. If she was a summer’s day, he was the glitter of sun on snow.
    As dazzling as the ring he had slipped onto her finger. “Did you know that the first diamond ring in honor of a betrothal was given by the Archduke Maximilian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy?” Cedric asked, nodding at her hand. “I chose this ring because you are as lovely as that lady.”
    “I’m honored,” Merry breathed. As much as she had loved Dermot’s hair, his woven-hair ring was revolting when compared to this. “It is exquisite. I love rose-cut diamonds.”
    “Your ring finger is as perfect